Kodiak’s two municipalities have hired the community’s first Emergency Manager. The City of Kodiak and Kodiak Island Borough announced Wednesday, Jan. 8, that Richard Gonzalez will be the main point of contact for local, state and federal partners during emergency response on the island.
He has already begun putting together weekly situation reports and plans to distribute more information to the public through social media.
Gonzalez was most recently employed by the Kodiak College, where he ran the Occupational Endorsement Certificate in Marine Services Technology program up until the end of last year.
Davis Hovey, KMXT: Rich, could you just kind of tell me why you were interested in this position in the first place?
Rich Gonzalez: It's something that's always interested me. It's what I've done in the Coast Guard, different places I've been. I've always been involved in the emergency management piece, and I find it very it's a good challenge to figure out where do we need to be on things to prevent stuff and do mitigation and the emergency response portion of it.
KMXT: And, obviously you mentioned your background on the Coast Guard, and the press release talks a lot about that, but could you kind of talk about your personal experience with maybe some specific emergencies or disasters in other places?
Gonzalez: I think my biggest one was the hurricane response to Maria in Puerto Rico. That one was one that; almost total devastation to the island with infrastructure and utilities and whatnot.
So I learned a lot during that experience, especially how the federal government works with the communities exactly what they're looking for, how to expedite processes to make sure that people are getting the resources and aid that they need. So it was, it was a great experience for me. I really learned a lot just on that one incident. I mean, granted, it was a 30-day deployment to Puerto Rico.
KMXT: And Kodiak doesn't necessarily have hurricane threats, but we certainly have tsunamis, and we are an island community. But could you kind of talk about maybe some similar challenges you see here, things that maybe you could see could be improved already in Kodiak?
Gonzalez: You know, being brand new in the position and taking a look at stuff, it's kind of hard to say; right now, I'm just more looking at, what is our hazard mitigation plan? How are we set up to respond to emergencies? What is our training looking like, our emergency operation center, and just mostly getting out and meeting the different folks to see what do they bring to the table? How can we use them during emergencies?
KMXT: And just to clarify, have you been living here at Kodiak Island when a tsunami event occurred?
Gonzalez: Yes. So when we got here in 2021 I think we'd been here two months, and we felt the whole house shake, and the kids came running in, asking, what's going on, then we heard the tsunami alarm, and it was interesting; welcome.
KMXT: Welcome to Kodiak.
Yeah, one of the duties here Rich includes managing the local emergency planning committee. Could you kind of talk about an LEPC, for those who maybe aren't familiar, and again, something that Kodiak hasn't had in years to my understanding?
Gonzalez: Yeah, so the local emergency planning committee is a vital part of emergency operations. So they'll set kind of our guidelines of what we need to be looking out for, what are priorities, what may not be considered a priority. They kind of give us that map, road work for us to be able to do our emergency preparedness and move forward.
KMXT: What are you thinking about in terms of emergency preparedness here in Kodiak?
Gonzalez: You know, it's really important for us to get everything set up with the community. Like I said, I've had several people already reach out to me from the community when they found out I was in this position, asking me, 'Hey, how can we help?'
So certain things like community emergency response teams, the CERT teams, and just getting that public information out there, things like what do you need to have at home ready to go in case something happens? We can be ready for all emergencies, or most emergencies, but we just don't know when they're going to happen, right?
So it could be a seasonal thing. Right now we're getting a lot of rain, so what is my main concern right now? Landslides. As far as an earthquake and a tsunami, that's unpredictable, so obviously you have to be ready for that at all times. But it's going to take more than just myself. It's going to take a whole community approach to emergency preparedness.
